BEIRUT and TEL AVIV — Lebanon and Israel are holding on Tuesday their first direct diplomatic talks in more than 30 years. The talks are aimed at preparing negotiations to resolve Israel's conflict with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.
The meeting — to be held at the State Department in Washington, D.C., between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States — is rare.
No major breakthrough is expected to result from the meeting. But an official briefed on Israel's strategy, who was not authorized to speak publicly, described Tuesday's talks to NPR as "preparatory" and meant to lay out a framework for future negotiations.
These talks come after six weeks of fighting between the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon, where more than 2,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes, according to Lebanese health officials. Hezbollah has also fired at Israel, killing at least 12 soldiers and two civilians. Israel invaded southern Lebanon, destroying 40,000 homes, according to Lebanese officials, and carrying out strikes killing Hezbollah operatives and civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz both joined invading troops inside Lebanon over the weekend, where Katz said Israel would remove the threat "just as we did in Gaza," including demolishing homes so they can't become "terror outposts."
Lebanon wants to negotiate a ceasefire, while Israel wants Lebanon to take steps to disarm Hezbollah first. Israel is preparing for a long-term occupation of southern Lebanon to keep Hezbollah away from Israel's border, according to the official.
The two countries have no formal relations, and their meeting comes amid a shaky two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. The continued dispute over whether the truce extended to Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon has undermined the tenuous agreement.
The talks between Israel and Lebanon are not supported by Hezbollah, which has called on the Lebanese government to cancel them.
Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade fire into Tuesday. Israeli airstrikes hit border villages that Israel says it is seizing from Lebanon to create what it calls a "security zone" to prevent Hezbollah from firing cross-border rockets.
According to Lebanese authorities, over 2,000 people were killed in the last six weeks from Israeli fire, including more than 350 who were killed in a single day last week, many in central Beirut, after Israel struck 100 times in 10 minutes.
Hezbollah has launched rockets into northern Israel daily and fought against the invading Israeli military in southern Lebanon.
"These negotiations are futile," said Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qassem, in a speech televised on Monday. "No one has the right to take Lebanon down this path without internal consensus among its components — and this has not happened."
Israel says it will not agree to any deal unless there's a tangible plan with the Lebanese government for disarming Hezbollah.
But what influence the Lebanese government that's holding these talks has on Hezbollah remains unclear. Hezbollah is a major political party in Lebanon and holds seats in parliament. It is also a militia that operates largely independently of the Lebanese government and receives funding and direction from Iran.
Israel has long demanded that Hezbollah give up its weapons. But the group has continued to stockpile arms.
Lebanese also deeply mistrust Israel's intentions. During a ceasefire agreed to in 2024 by Israel and Lebanon, which was in place until March 2 of this year, U.N. peacekeepers recorded more than 10,000 violations of that agreement, and nearly all of them were from Israel.
The expectations for the talks were low in Beirut on Tuesday.
"There will never be peace between Israel and Lebanon," said Ali Abboud, a 37-year-old who was standing by the rubble of an apartment building in the center of the city, waiting to see if his sister's remains would be found. "I thought that before this happened, and now I feel it even stronger."
Jawad Rizkallah in Beirut contributed to this report.
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